Green Top

Green Top

Address: Middlebrook Lane, Thorne, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN8 5LB Unique reference number (URN): 144656

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, pupils are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect schools for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The school has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. All legal requirements are met. Not met: The school has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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Attendance and behaviour Strong standard

Leaders have clear systems in place to identify when pupils' attendance falls below what it should. They take clear, timely and effective action. As a result, there have been notable improvements in reducing the number of persistently absent pupils. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities and disadvantaged pupils attend school more regularly and benefit from the school's offer. Leaders work to support families and seek additional support for them, which is very effective. Teachers regularly discuss with pupils the benefits of education. Pupils understand the importance of attending school regularly. This has had a positive impact on pupils' attendance.

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Attendance and behaviour Strong standard

Leaders have very high expectations of pupils' behaviour. All staff, including those who work in the wider trust, play a part in creating a culture where these expectations permeate the school. From the playground, through the corridors and into the classrooms, pupils benefit from routines that are consistent and embedded. If pupils need support with their behaviour, staff provide it very well. Staff effectively address potential instances of discrimination, including bullying. As a result, these are very rare. The youngest children in the school set an excellent example of how to behave. For example, children in the early years regularly tidy up after themselves, putting their resources back after using them. Older pupils set an excellent example of how to behave and model the school's values in all of their interactions with others.

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Early years Strong standard

Children get off to a flying start in the early years. Adults care for and nurture children throughout their time at school. Children learn to become independent and follow routines and expectations. This helps them feel safe and happy to learn.

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Early years Strong standard

Leaders are ambitious for children to reach their full potential. Leaders ensure that the curriculum is detailed and precise from the start. The curriculum breaks down what children need to learn into small steps. Leaders and staff revisit the curriculum to ensure that it is responsive to children's needs. Staff regularly check children's progress to ensure they keep up with the planned curriculum. Where they are not keeping up, children receive swift support where needed.

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Early years Strong standard

Children in Nursery settle quickly because of the warm relationships from the start of their school journey. Staff place communication and language at the centre of activities and interactions with children. This means children quickly learn the skills to ask for help and can work well with their peers. Staff diligently and precisely insist that children speak in full sentences.

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Early years Strong standard

Activities across the early years are rich in quality. Teachers plan all activities carefully, focusing on extending pupils' basic skills in reading, writing and mathematics. For example, children regularly engage with writing activities and write letters to characters from their chosen stories. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, as well as disadvantaged children, also benefit and learn from these activities. Staff ensure that these

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Expected standard

children have access to, and learn across, all areas of learning so that no opportunities are missed.

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Personal development and wellbeing Strong standard

Leaders have developed a culture full of love, care and compassion for pupils. The personal development offer is extensive. It ensures that all pupils thrive, including pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities and disadvantaged pupils.

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Personal development and wellbeing Strong standard

Pupils' daily personal development lessons teach them important knowledge, such as how to stay safe, including online. They learn about the challenges they might face in their lifetime, such as peer pressure and how to deal with this. They also develop a strong understanding of personal target setting and use this to challenge themselves to tricky tasks. Pupils use their strong communication and collaboration skills to talk and challenge each other. They ask interesting questions and listen carefully to responses.

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Personal development and wellbeing Strong standard

Pupils have a deep understanding of how to play a positive role in society. They model this in their behaviours by showing respect and compassion towards one another. They are knowledgeable about world views and have a strong sense of right and wrong. Pupils think about and discuss key ideas, such as democracy and individual liberty. Developing character is a key part of the school's work. Pupils know why integrity is important and that it will serve them well in later life. They celebrate others' positive character traits and proudly display their reward badges on their jumpers.

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Personal development and wellbeing Strong standard

Many pupils have leadership opportunities. Pupil leaders make a positive difference to the school. Leaders set them challenges that allow them to contribute to the school's improvement journey. The members of the crew council take part in projects, both inside and outside of the school. For example, pupils worked with the local council to create posters explaining how to use the park equipment safely. Reading ambassadors recently designed the school's new library. They worked with other pupils to suggest book choices and created rules to keep the library tidy.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Leaders ensure that pupils receive a high-quality education. The curriculum is generally appropriately sequenced and well considered. Since the previous inspection, leaders have further refined the curriculum. In most subjects, the curriculum identifies more specifically what pupils need to know and remember across subjects and phases. This helps teachers understand what pupils need to learn through the school's project-based approach. In reading, leaders continue to refine the curriculum, such as implementing a range of strategies that support pupils to read with increasing fluency. Pupils read from a range of different authors and genres. Pupils across the school share an increasing love of reading, which stems from the engaging texts shared throughout the school. Leaders routinely monitor and evaluate the quality of teaching. They know where any changes they make work well. Leaders identify areas where further work could strengthen

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Teachers have secure subject knowledge. Generally, they deliver the school's curriculum well. For example, teachers in key stage 1 regularly revisit basic skills in reading, writing and mathematics with pupils. Teachers provide appropriate support so pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities can access the curriculum. At times, teachers provide tasks that do not help pupils learn as well as they could. They do not always use what they know about pupils' starting points or plan tasks that fully help pupils learn the intended knowledge.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Leaders create an inclusive culture. The school's 'basecamp' professional learning strategy helps staff understand a range of barriers to learning. Staff quickly identify pupils' needs. They then put in place appropriate strategies to support pupils, particularly those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The inclusion team checks how effective this support is. They make any necessary changes to continue supporting pupils positively. Leaders seek more specialist advice for pupils with SEND with more complex needs. This enables them to provide precise support for these pupils. As a result, barriers to learning reduce.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Staff identify disadvantaged pupils and provide positive support. Leaders use the pupil premium funding effectively. They regularly review their pupil premium strategy to check how well it supports disadvantaged pupils. For example, leaders have improved the attendance of disadvantaged pupils through the use of this funding. Leaders ensure that disadvantaged pupils receive additional pastoral support. They use a range of strategies to support and improve pupils' wellbeing. This helps them to build confidence and participate positively in school life.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders have a clear understanding of the school's strengths and areas for improvement. They are committed to the school and model high expectations in their work. Leaders use their monitoring and evaluation to identify improvements. They check how well new strategies are working and make adjustments where needed. These strategies are always decided with pupils' best interests in mind. These strategies have been particularly successful in ensuring that pupils behave and attend well, develop secure personal skills, and experience a high-quality early years education.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Professional learning is at the heart of the offer for staff. Leaders, including in the trust, promote opportunities that develop staff skills and knowledge. Staff are overwhelmingly positive about the support and guidance they receive. This support allows them to have a positive impact across many areas of the school's work. They are very proud to work at the school and within the wider trust.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Governors have an accurate view of the school. Leaders regularly share information with governors so that they can celebrate successes and provide appropriate challenge. Parents

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Needs attention

and carers say that the school is a part of the community. They value the support they receive and the opportunities the school gives to their children.

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Achievement Needs attention

Younger pupils develop a secure understanding of how to read. This is reflected in the positive outcomes in the Year 1 phonics screening check. The school has introduced several new approaches to strengthen reading for older pupils. However, older pupils continue to have gaps in their reading knowledge. Pupils do not always develop their fluency and comprehension skills as well as they could. This hinders how well they achieve.

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Achievement Needs attention

Generally, pupils develop secure basic writing skills. Younger pupils demonstrate a secure understanding of sentence structures and spelling patterns. Occasionally, pupils in older classes are not given sufficient practice to secure their basic writing skills. This means that gaps in their learning continue. Leaders have begun to address this and are taking positive action through the improvements to the curriculum.

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Achievement Needs attention

Outcomes in national tests in reading and writing last year were below national averages. This is partly due to the higher-than-average number of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities in the year group, many of whom had lower starting points in English. Pupils achieve in line with national averages in mathematics. They develop the appropriate skills and knowledge across the curriculum. Younger pupils effectively secure their understanding of numbers and simple calculations in the earlier stages of their education.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Staff nurture and care for pupils at Green Top. They live and breathe the school's learning habits of 'work hard, be kind and get smart'. They enjoy coming to school. Pupils receive a warm welcome from staff at the start of each day. They feel safe and attend regularly. Throughout the school day, pupils communicate with each other respectfully and with good manners. Adults swiftly address any incidents of unkindness. As a result, bullying is rare.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Behaviour in classrooms is excellent. Pupils share their ideas with their classmates and listen carefully to staff. They show resilience when answering tricky problems. Younger children in the early years demonstrate high levels of independence. They consistently follow the routines and expectations. This allows them to engage well with activities and make rapid progress in their learning.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils benefit from the school's learning offer. They engage well with the school's 'expedition' curriculum. This delivers important learning across subjects such as science, history and art. Pupils generally learn this knowledge well. In other subjects, further work is ongoing to ensure that pupils develop their skills and knowledge securely by the end of each phase.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils who face barriers to learning are well supported by the school's inclusive strategies. Pupils receive the appropriate support, which enables them to engage positively in their learning.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

The school prioritises pupils' personal development and wellbeing. As a result, pupils have regular, high-quality opportunities to develop important skills, such as compassion, courage and integrity. The enrichment offer is rich and wide ranging. Pupils benefit significantly, with many taking on leadership responsibilities and attending the full range of enrichment clubs. Pupils, particularly those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and disadvantaged pupils, make very good use of this offer.

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Next steps

Leaders should ensure that the revised strategies in reading and writing are implemented more effectively to ensure that pupils achieve as well as they could, including in national tests and examinations. Leaders should ensure that teachers use assessment consistently well to identify gaps in learning and provide appropriate tasks that enable pupils to make progress from their starting points.

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About this inspection

This school is part of XP trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the chief executive officer, Gywn ap Harri, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Stephen Cooper Bielby.

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About this inspection

Inspectors carried out this full inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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About this inspection

Following our renewed inspection framework, all inspections are now led by His Majesty's Inspectors (HMI) or by Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) who have previously served as HMIs.

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About this inspection

Inspectors spoke with the headteacher and other senior leaders, including representatives from the trust executive team, during the inspection. Inspectors also spoke with a director of the XP trust, pupils and parents and carers as part of the inspection.

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About this inspection

The inspectors confirmed the following information about the school:

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About this inspection

The school currently makes use of one registered alternative provision.

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Team inspectors:

Jaimie Holbrook, Ofsted Inspector Helen Stout, Ofsted Inspector Chris Jennings, Ofsted Inspector

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Facts and figures used on inspection

The data was used by the inspector(s) during the inspection. More recent data may have been published since the inspection took place.

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils currently at this school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils who can attend the school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan. This covers pupils with more support than is available through special educational needs support.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with reported special educational support needs at the school.

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What does this mean?

Based on the English Indices of Deprivation (2019) and the school's location, we have calculated whether the school is located in a more or less deprived area.

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What does this mean?

Whether school has Resourced Provision or SEND unit (if applicable).

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standards in a combined reading, writing and mathematics measure.

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average

2023/24 (final) 63% 61% Close to average

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading.

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average

2023/24 (final) 70% 74% Close to average

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing.

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average

2023/24 (final) 72% 72% Close to average

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics.

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average

2024/25 (final) 70% 74% Close to average

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average

2023/24 (final) 73% 73% Close to average

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average

2022/23 (final) 69% 73% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils' performance

Disadvantaged pupils are those who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years and children looked after.

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mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics.

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national average

2023/24 (final) 50% 46% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading.

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average

2024/25 (final) 52% 63% Close to average

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average

2023/24 (final) 54% 62% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher- assessed writing.

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average

2024/25 (final) 48% 59% Close to average

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average

2023/24 (final) 63% 58% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics.

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average

2024/25 (final) 61% 61% Close to average

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average

2023/24 (final) 58% 59% Close to average

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average

2022/23 (final) 54% 59% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils' performance gap

Disadvantaged pupils are those who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years and children looked after. The school disadvantage gap is the difference between the performance of the school's disadvantaged pupils compared to the performance of all non-disadvantaged pupils nationally.

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mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics, including the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading and the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher- assessed writing and the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics and the disadvantaged gap.

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Overall absence

The percentage of all possible mornings and afternoons missed due to absence from school (for whatever reason, whether authorised or unauthorised) across all pupils.

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national average

2024/25 (3 term) 4.6% 5.2% Close to average

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national average

2022/23 (3 term) 5.8% 5.9% Close to average

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Persistent absence

The percentage of pupils missing 10% or more of their possible mornings and afternoons.

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national average

2024/25 (3 term) 10.0% 13.0% Close to average

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national average

2022/23 (3 term) 16.8% 16.2% Close to average

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other schools can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The school reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The school is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The school needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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